Chapter 9
Chapter
Nine
Everton House smelled of beeswax, woodsmoke and rooms too recently opened after a long absence of human inhabitance.
Benedict stood in the entrance hall while servants carried the first of the trunks up the dark and slightly narrow stairs and tried to reconcile the house he remembered with the home his parents had given him.
His grandmother had died nearly twenty years earlier, after failing health confined her to Denham Park during the final years of her life.
Benedict had been a boy when Everton was last fully occupied.
In his memory, the hall had been crowded with polished tables, enormous arrangements of hothouse flowers and small dogs that appeared determined to kill anyone who approached their mistress.
Now the furniture was spare, the marble floor echoed beneath every step and pale rectangles upon the walls marked the places where paintings had been removed.
Harriet turned slowly beneath the central chandelier. “It is not precisely welcoming.”
“It has been closed for nearly two decades.
Welcome requires more than a day's work, even with an army of housemaids.” Benedict removed his gloves and laid them upon a table.
“The roof is sound, the chimneys draw and my mother assures me every mattress has been beaten within an inch of its life. We must be grateful for practical comforts until you have decided what else the place requires.”
“I have decided it requires lamps. The hall is gloomy even at noon.”
“One decision accomplished. At this rate, we shall be comfortably established by Christmas… next Christmas.”
She gave him the look he had intended to provoke, but it lacked its customary force.
Since leaving the wood, Harriet had been quieter than usual.
She had insisted that she had seen nothing, then looked over her shoulder three times before they reached the house.
Benedict had not challenged the contradiction.
He meant to question her when they were alone and when doing so would not encourage her to retreat behind irritation.
For the present, he offered his arm. “Come. You should see the rest before our possessions make passage impossible.”
The drawing room overlooked the front lawn.
In the spring and summer, that would be a lovely vista.
In the deepest part of autumn with winter just around the bend, it was rather bleak.
Still, the room had great potential. Its proportions were graceful, though the green silk wall coverings had faded almost to gray and the matching draperies had suffered an even worse fate wherever sunlight reached them.
Harriet pinched a fold of fabric between her fingers to lift it and the fabric simply tore, shredding between her fingertips from dry rot. .
“Those cannot be saved,” she said. “Nor should we attempt it. At least we know why the curtains have been left open. They would have disintegrated the first time a maid drew them.”
“Then they shall be replaced.”
“Not until I have seen the accounts.” Harriet released the fabric with care.
“Your father has provided an income for the house, but that does not mean we ought to spend it merely because the present furnishings offend us. The draperies may be removed from this room and no doubt there will be others in the house that have fared better. They will serve until we know what can be afforded.”
Benedict felt an absurd impulse to tell her she might cover every wall in Chinese silk if it pleased her.
The impulse had less to do with the expense than with imagining Harriet making the choices that would transform this faded house into theirs.
Since the wedding, he had discovered how readily every ordinary thought could be made dangerous when it included his wife.
Before his marriage, he had assumed agreeing to Harriet's terms would require only restraint.
He possessed restraint when it mattered.
He could occupy another chamber, conduct himself with courtesy and wait for whatever trust might grow between them.
What he had failed to consider was the daily intimacy of marriage.
Her gloves lay beside his upon the hall table.
Her books would fill shelves next to his.
At breakfast, he would know whether she had slept and whether the day pleased her before she uttered a word.
He had also failed to consider that she might sit upright in his bed, her hair loose and one shoulder bare, and invite him beneath the covers as if no man could mistake such an invitation for anything but practicality.
“Benedict?” Harriet had crossed the room and stood before the doors to the terrace.
He recalled himself. “Forgive me. I was calculating the number of windows and considering whether economy might be served by bricking up half of them.”
“Your expression suggested a more violent calculation. I am relieved the windows were its only victims.” She tried one of the doors.
It resisted before opening with a protesting scrape.
Cold air entered the room, carrying the scent of damp earth and leaves.
Beyond the terrace lay neglected gardens, their formal lines still visible beneath years of growth. “This might be beautiful.”
“It was once. My grandmother employed six gardeners and terrorized every one of them. She considered a crooked hedge evidence of moral failing” Benedict joined Harriet at the threshold.
“You may restore it as you please. Or leave it wild. There is no one here whose preferences must supersede yours.”
She looked at him then. The guardedness he had seen in the wood had not vanished, but something warmer moved beneath it. “Nor yours?”
“I reserve the right to oppose any scheme involving peacocks. Beyond that, I am prepared to be reasonable.”
“How fortunate. I had intended to order a dozen before dinner.”
They moved through the library and the adjoining estate room, where the books smelled of dust despite Mrs. Grieves's efforts and the leather top of the desk had cracked with age.
The morning room proved brighter than the rest of the house.
Harriet lingered at its eastern windows, looking across the distant fields toward Alderley.
Benedict remained near the door. His mother had chosen well.
Harriet could live here without being severed from the home she had sacrificed so much to preserve.
He only hoped that she would not always look so longingly at it.
He wondered whether she understood that he wanted Everton to become a home for her rather than another price paid for Alderley's survival.
The distinction grew more important each time he looked at her, and more difficult to express without trespassing upon the boundary she had established between them.
Upstairs, a short private passage separated the principal bedchambers.
His grandmother had occupied the southern room, while her second husband—a man who had occupied the position only briefly before fleeing the harridan— used the northern chamber during the few years he had lived at Everton.
A small dressing room opened from each and connected them without requiring passage into the public corridor.
Benedict had ordered Harriet's belongings placed in the brighter southern rooms. His own trunks were already stacked across the passage.
Harriet paused between the two doors. Her gaze went first to one and then the other. “Your grandmother valued independence.”
“She valued sleep. Her second husband, as I’ve been told, snored with such vigor that a guest once mistook the noise for thunder.” Benedict opened the door to Harriet's chamber. “The arrangement seemed suited to us and our… agreement.”
The words were true. They also tasted of the night he had spent upon the floor at Denham and the offer he had made in a moment of frayed restraint.
Harriet entered without answering. Benedict remained at the threshold until she turned and asked whether he meant to show her the rest of the house or abandon her among the faded bed hangings.
He took her through the remaining rooms, most of which required only fresh paper, new curtains and the return of furniture stored either in the attics or removed to Denham.
By the time they descended, the carts had been entirely unloaded and dispatched back to Denham.
Pritchard stood in the hall directing footmen as to their duties before he departed for Denham himself, while Mrs. Mercer emerged from the servants' passage with a ring of keys and an expression of grim accomplishment.
“The rooms you require are ready, my lord,” she informed Benedict.
“The remainder may be opened as her ladyship wishes. Mrs. Grieves has sent over a bevy of servants. There are two housemaids, a kitchen maid, a footman and the stable lad. Cook will stay for the week, but Lady Denham expects her back at the Park by Monday, so one will need to be obtained. And likely some extra kitchen maids, as well. And of course, a housekeeper.”
“We have a housekeeper, Mrs. Mercer,” Harriet informed her. “That shall be your role should you choose to accept it. However, in light of that, I will need to acquire a new ladies’ maid.”
It was enough to make the house habitable, but not enough to maintain it.
They required a permanent cook, another footman, at least two more maids and servants for the laundry and scullery.
Ordinarily, the deficiencies would have been merely inconvenient.
After the warning delivered by Selby's steward, every vacancy represented a danger.
“No one is to be hired upon recommendation alone,” Benedict said. “Pritchard will inquire into every applicant, and no servant who has worked for Selby or any member of his household is to be considered.”
Mrs. Mercer’s brows rose, but she did not question the order. In fact, there appeared to be a glimmer of admiration in the steely depths. “Very good, my lord.”
When she had withdrawn, Harriet moved closer. “You believe he might place someone here?”
“I believe Selby will use any advantage available to him, and I have no intention of providing one.” Benedict lowered his voice as a footman passed with a trunk.
“The agreement with your father prevented Selby from taking possession of the mortgaged land because our marriage joined Alderley's interests with Denham's. If he can persuade anyone that the marriage is a pretense or not legally binding, he may attempt to challenge the contracts founded upon it.”
“A marriage is not invalid merely because husband and wife occupy separate chambers.”
“No. But a public allegation can delay the enforcement of an agreement even when the allegation itself is weak. Selby does not need to prevail if he can create doubt, expose private matters and force your father into another costly dispute.” Benedict looked toward the stairs, where another servant disappeared with Harriet's belongings.
“What occurs between us must remain between us. Anyone admitted to this household must understand discretion, and we must give them nothing which can be carried back to him.”
Harriet's expression altered. He could not tell whether the thought angered or alarmed her, only that it had struck deeply. “Then we must be careful.”
“We will be.” Benedict wanted to ask what she had seen in the wood. Before he could, Pritchard approached with a question about the library furniture, and the moment was lost.
For the remainder of the afternoon, Benedict oversaw trunks, argued against placing his desk in Harriet's estate room while she approved a temporary arrangement for meals.
Yet beneath every practical consideration lay the one problem no servant could resolve for them.
Separate rooms might preserve the terms of their marriage, but separate rooms observed too closely could endanger everything the marriage had been intended to save.
Everton had given them privacy. Benedict was beginning to understand how carefully they would have to counterfeit intimacy in order to keep it.